Yeah, that I can definitely see. Though I suspect that number is improving... hopefully you won't have to wait too long. I think in my case it will wait until I've done some other house projects and such...

Why wouldn't you just keeping using the old panels? They won't get any less useful. They'll still put out very nearly the same power level 25 years from now. No one leases a car for that long because you don't expect your car to still be in good working order that far in the future, and you'll want the newer improved safety features, better engine, better gas mileage, etc. But with the panels... it's just watts. So your neighbor's newer installation has 8 panels instead of 10 for the same power level or something. Who cares? It doesn't take space you're actually using, you're still getting the number of watts you purchased.

What were you hoping for? If you buy out right, you can buy new stuff later. Besides, it's not like your cell phone where they go out of style; a 1kW system will still be a 1kW system. Improvements just mean the prices go down, not that your neighbors will laugh at your outdated panels.

First option not on the list: revoking self-signed SSL certificates. Normally, it's hard to revoke a self-signed cert, because a potential attacker can just fail to send the user the revocation. But put the revocation on the blockchain, and timestamp the original cert, and it all gets a lot better.

Second: Time-release encryption. You can build a public key such that the private key can be computed from any future set of blockchain hashes. PDF paper. That makes it actually time-release, instead of a lot of schemes that release in response to a certain amount of work being done.

They've hardly missed the boat. If Bitcoin really disrupts things in Argentina, then that means Argentinians holding Bitcoins instead of holding pesos or dollars. That would imply they hold a number of Bitcoins worth some vaguely similar amount to what their current cash holdings are worth. Given that there are about $50B USD worth of pesos, and only $3B USD worth of Bitcoins, then either the price goes up a bunch or Bitcoin isn't actually being all that disruptive.

Fortunately, bitcoin allows multi-signature escrow. That permits the escrow service to decide who gets the bitcoins (buyer or seller), but doesn't let them run off with them.
It's not perfect, as it can't prevent collusion between escrow agent and either party against the other party, but it does prevent the simpler forms of "just run off with the money".
Why it isn't in more widespread use yet, I have no idea.

They're fairly clear that they want the ability to provide both 2kVA and 2kW. Presumably that implies you only have to be able to deliver 2kW into a resistive load, and that if they present a load with power factor 0.7, you need to be able to provide it with 1400W and 2kVA.

By a quirk of history, this particular culture won and imposed it customs on everyone else.

There's a societal down-side to polygamy, one that needs STRONG cultural overrides to prevent. If (presumably) richer men are allowed multiple wives, that means that there are fewer wives for the rest of the men. You then end up with an excess of unmarried, non-parental young adult men, and being married and a parent is usually a calming influence. These single men are usually the first in the streets if things take even a tiny down-turn. We still see this in Arabic countries which allow polygamy, as well as countries where there's an imbalance of men and women, such as China and India (one-child policies as well as gender-based abortions responsible.

This is an obvious problem in societies that also have the problem of being strongly patriarchal and/or misogynistic. (The obvious examples you site have these issues.) In cases where women are equally allowed and able to engage in such relationships, there is no a priori reason to suspect such a problem.

The only evidence I know of that is directly relevant to modern times and from a sexually equal setting is highly anecdotal. I've looked a little for better without luck. But, what I've seen and heard from the polyamory community is that this is most likely a non-issue, and that if it isn't, you probably have your genders reversed. Basically, I've seen weak anecdotal evidence that in some circles, the women tend to participate in more relationships than the men do. I haven't seen any evidence (weak or otherwise) of the reverse effect. And, of course, this report should be taken with a large grain of salt, as it's based on fairly strongly selection-biased sources. However, I think it's strong enough to call your fears into question.

For reference, I (male, straight) in a happily polyamorous relationship. My partner (female) has a paramour (also male, also straight). The three of us get along well, and none of us are actively dating anyone else.

Coal ash is the solid stuff left after you burn the coal. The carbon (and heavy hydrocarbons) in coal is the stuff that burns. The stuff left behind has very, very low carbon content. The carbon basically all comes out as CO2 gas.

You can distill helium out of the air. There's some left. The cost would be around 10x the cost of neon, though. And if you have to ask what neon costs...

Actually, people do distill some helium out of the air. It comes out with the neon as "noncondensing gases" in the column. Those gases get sold to some buyers of neon, who don't mind some extra helium in the gas. Neon signs aren't too picky, iirc.

There are a number of interesting arguments that you're right, and that politics isn't about policy. If you came to that position on your own, you'll probably find the link interesting. (If not, you've probably already seen it...)

There have been cases of criminals finding ways to substitute another person's DNA for their own, including one case of a doctor who actually managed to hide another person's blood in one of his veins, thus faking his innocence.

Actually, it just involves putting them in landfills where they don't decompose. Eating them means digesting them, which returns their carbon content to the atmosphere. This proposal replaces eating them with sequestering them.

There have been several more disasters, depending on where you set the line. If you accept anything in the "accident" range, that's 8 total events, one of which didn't involve a reactor, just some nuclear material. So, either 7 or 8, depending how you count. See International Nuclear Event Scale.